Happy Feet (penguin)

Happy Feet was an emperor penguin who in June 2011 arrived at Peka Peka Beach in the Kāpiti Coast District of New Zealand's North Island, making him one of the northernmost emperor penguins ever recorded. After travelling about 3,200 kilometres (2,000 mi) to get there from Antarctica, he became the second emperor penguin to have been found in New Zealand, with the last being in 1967. After eating sand at the beach and filling his stomach with it, he became lethargic, dehydrated and overheated. As a result, he was transported to Wellington Zoo and was given a 50 per cent chance of survival. Vets removed most of the sand and he was kept at the zoo for 10 weeks to recover.

Happy Feet was released in the Southern Ocean on 4 September 2011, about 79 kilometres (49 mi) north of Campbell Island, at 53 degrees south. He was fitted with a GPS tracker so that his location could be tracked by the public, but it fell silent on 9 September. It is not known why this occurred. Possible explanations are that the tracker stopped working or had simply fallen off, or that Happy Feet had been eaten by a predator. John Cockrem of Massey University said at the time that it was "highly likely" that he was alive, as predators are not that common at the location where he disappeared.

The story of Happy Feet received worldwide media attention, with over 600 media outlets covering it. He raised the public's awareness of wildlife, and for some time got more media attention than Prime Minister John Key. He was named after the 2006 film with the same name which features emperor penguins, was named Time magazine's runner-up 2011 animal of the year, and in late 2011 had a children's book published about him by Penguin Books.